Lincoln's Assassin

I see the Lincoln Society of Virginia has updated their site to list the annual ceremony tomorrow and the 7th Annual Lincoln Symposium in Bridgewater on Monday, April 18, 2011. The latter event features author James L. Swanson, who wrote Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer.

I just finished the audiobook version of Manhunt and it was exciting. Flawlessly narrated by actor Richard Thomas, it reads like a great adventure story. With John Wilkes Booth and Davey Herold are on the run, it's a doomed road trip but a fascinating one. I felt some sympathy for Herold, who could have deserted the wounded Booth and saved his own life but chose to look after his partner-in-crime. Booth, however, is not a sympathetic character, although Swanson portrays his misguided idealism with insight. He was a fanatic with a huge ego. Unfortunately, he had the ability to convince a handful of men to follow him, first in developing a plot to kidnap Lincoln and then changing the plot to assassination.

With the assistance of Confederate sympathizers, Booth and Herold managed to elude detectives and Union cavalry for 12 days. However, they fail to cross the Potomac on the first try and later, after reaching Virginia, tarry too long on the Garrett farm, even after the Garrett family tries to get them to leave. Whether they would have escaped death if they had not made these errors is impossible to say for certain. Personally I think that Booth would have failed to keep his identity secret and would have been caught eventually.